Early life and photography Feldman is the son of Phil Feldman, an attorney who became a Hollywood producer and executive. He has three brothers, Ken, Gary and Randy. Dennis even worked on Phil's best known, 1969's
The Wild Bunch, with a small appearance on the opening Texas town sequence. Feldman graduated from
Harvard University, where he became interested in photography and design, partly due to his upbringing close to the film industry. He worked a while as a documentary photographer, then studied graphic design at the
Yale School of Art and
Architecture. Feldman went on to earn acclaim as a still photographer, teaching photography for ten years at
San Francisco City College,
Boston University and
UCLA. He has released two photography books:
American Images (1977), the result of an eleven-month travel on 49 of the 50 United States; and
Hollywood Boulevard, 1969–1972 (2015), which he described as "a '70s version of what
Robert Frank and
Walker Evans" did in the '50s", registering the people who wandered through
Hollywood Boulevard – which Feldman frequently visited as his wife has a store there.
Film career Feldman then decided to work in the film industry, first with the help of fellow writer brother Randy, with both doing
script doctoring. Afterwards his screenplay
The Golden Child attracted a bidding war that was won by
Paramount Pictures. Feldman was paid about $330,000 up front for the script and had the option to direct, but eventually the studio picked
Michael Ritchie for the task. Originally titled
The Rose of Tibet, it was planned to be "a
Raymond Chandler movie with supernatural elements", but the eventual film, released in 1986, became a comedy starring
Eddie Murphy. Feldman then had his directing debut adapting his script
Real Men (1987) and produced
Dead Again (1991), which he also developed the story with
Scott Frank. In 1995 Feldman wrote and co-produced
Species, based on a script idea he had in 1985. He also penned a comic book adaptation of the film by
Dark Horse Comics and helped
Yvonne Navarro write the film's
novelization. Feldman has also been part of the
Writers Guild of America, West board from 1998 to 2003, being part of the Screenwriters Council, Public Presence Subcommittee, and heading the WGAW Awards Committee and
show. == Filmography ==